“The biotechnology industry is at the start of a new era,” says the CEO, highlighting the emergence of new modalities, the potential of digital solutions, and increased emphasis on local manufacturing. And the new organization wants to meet the demands of this new era with a 'combined broad and differentiated portfolio with trusted technologies, commercial and service organizations.'
‘It’s an inspiring time to work in the biotech industry’
Cytiva and Pall announced in January that the life sciences business of Pall would separate from Pall Corporation; with the biotech portfolio becoming a product family in Cytiva’s bioprocess business. The Pall medical portfolio will remain a market brand and part of Cytiva (Pall Corporation continues to operate as a Danaher operating company across a range of other industrial applications).
The key advantage of the combination comes with its scale: with a portfolio that spans from lab to production scale; and from cell culture and single-use technologies to chromatography and filtration.
Cytiva’s portfolio – designed to better enable customers to accelerate therapeutics from discovery to delivery - now includes product brands including Allegro, Supor, iCELLis, Kleenpak, and Pegasus, in addition to ÄKTA, Amersham, Biacore, FlexFactory, HyClone, MabSelect, Sefia, Whatman, Xcellerex and Xuri.
Cytiva – whose business was focused in upstream consumables and equipment and process chromatography – now brings in Pall’s filtration, purification and separation technologies: resulting in an extensive portfolio, says Ligner.
But alongside this, he highlights that the combined company also can now give customers better access to top expertise. The new Cytiva boasts nearly 16,000 associates in 40 countries with 36 manufacturing sites and 20 R&D centers, with a range of technical service and support from R&D to commercialization, including a local presence in all major regions.
“Our customers will have simpler and greater access to our industry-leading expertise to help them solve some of the world’s greatest health challenges,” he said. “It’s an inspiring time to work in the biotechnology industry with the growth of genomic medicine, particularly RNA technologies and cell and gene therapies. Our new combined organization is better positioned to support the long-term growth of the industry and to keep pace with innovation.”
Focus on digital
One of the most important focuses of the new organization will be to accelerate the adoption of digital solutions, Ligner says.
“Today you can forecast your pizza’s completion time on an app in real time, but our customers cannot yet know the success of their therapeutic manufacturing batch for days or weeks.
“Accelerating the adoption of digital solutions will better enable fast, flexible, and reliable bioprocess development.”
The company is focused on four key digital technologies that it believes can help solve industry challenges.
“The first is in-silico process development to speed development of high performance, flexible processes. Secondly, predictive batch to reduce the frequency of failed or underperforming batches.
“Next, overall equipment effectiveness to decrease customer downtime via predictive and remote maintenance; and finally adaptive plant to reduce transfer costs, such as Cytiva’s virtual reality training system which allows people to train anywhere in the world.”
Monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapies, SUT
The company highlights its ability to cater for growth in monoclonal antibodies; cell and gene therapies; RNA and vaccines.
And the single-use technology market remains important: with some 90% of drugs in development using SUT, estimates the company, tracking a 30% CAGR between Cytiva and Pall life science between 2018 and 2021.
Cytiva itself was formed via Danaher’s 2020 acquisition of General Electric Company’s Life Science division, taking on the name Cytiva and becoming a standalone operation within Danaher’s Life Sciences segment.
Since the acquisition, the company has grown from revenues around the $3bn mark to over $6bn. The combination with Pall’s life science business now brings projected revenues into the region of $8.5bn a year: the majority through bioprocessing (totaling around $7.5bn, including more than $1bn from single-use technologies) but also via lab and medical and research divisions.
Of note is a $1.5bn investment program between 2021 and 2025 across 13 sites. These investments are designed to increase capacity and reduce lead time (in filtration, for example, the company anticipates doubling capacity and cutting lead times by some 85%).
The company has delivered on capacity expansion plans; as well as purchasing a site in Muskegon, Michigan to manufacture resins in the US, reports Ligner.
The company is projecting high single digit core revenue growth over the long-term. Ligner says the company’s mission will always be focused around advancing and accelerating therapeutics. “Our goal is to continue to grow and to deliver the technologies and solutions our customers need to address the world’s greatest health challenges,” he said.
Asked if acquisitions are likely to be on the card in the future, he said the company is "always looking to drive growth and is continually evaluating all potential opportunities".
